Urinary proteomic biomarkers in oncology: ready for implementation?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Biomarkers are expected to improve the management of cancer patients by enabling early detection and prediction of therapeutic response. Proteins reflect a molecular phenotype, have high potential as biomarkers, and also are key targets for intervention. Given the ease of collection and proximity to certain tumors, the urinary proteome is a rich source of biomarkers and several proteins have been already implemented.

Areas covered: We examined the literature on urine proteins and proteome analysis in oncology from reports published during the last 5 years to generate an overview on the status of urine protein and peptide biomarkers, with emphasis on their actual clinical value.

Expert commentary: A few studies report on biomarkers that are ready to be implemented in patient management, among others in bladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. These reports are based on multi-marker approaches. A high number of biomarkers, though, has been described in studies with low statistical power. In fact, several of them have been consistently reported across different studies. The latter should be the focus of attention and be tested in properly designed confirmatory and ultimately, prospective investigations. It is expected that multi-marker classifiers for a specific context-of-use, will be the preferred path toward clinical implementation.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomarkers
• proteomics
• precision medicine

Declaration of interest

H. Mischak is the founder, co-owner, and an employee of Mosaiques Diagnostics. M. Frantzi, A. Latosinska, and I. Belczacka are employed by Mosaiques Diagnostics. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by BioGuidePCa, Eurostars Project [E! 11023] funded by Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Germany),  by BioMedBC Project [752755] funded by H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 - European Commission, by PCaProTreat Project [800048] funded by H2020-MSCA-IF-2017 - European Commission, by Chromatin3D Project [642934] funded by H2020-MSCA-ITN- European Commission and by TheranOMICS Project [739709] funded by H2020-INNOSUP-2016-2017 - European Commission.